The Elisha family were builders, farmers and farm workers who have lived in Shinfield parish since at least 1602, when a William Elisha married Elizabeth Pither in St. Mary’s church, Shinfield on 10th October. This post looks at two generations of the family, both named John Elisha, and the wife of the second John Elisha, Dorothy Davis, who lived at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The first John Elisha and his brother, James were both successful builders and bricklayers, each owning their own brickworks, and were followed into the business by their sons. John Elisha’s life spanned pretty much the entire eighteenth century, from his birth in 1707 to his death in 1787. In his will, made in the last months of his life, he describes himself as a Bricklayer, living in Swallowfield. From as early as 1768 we can see from the Poll Book that although he lived in Swallowfield, he owned property in Shinfield and thus had the right to vote – then restricted to property owners. At this time Ballots were not secret and how people voted was recorded and published in poll books. In this case, like most voters, John Elisha voted for the sitting MPs, Thomas Craven and Arthur Vansittart. The third contestant, John Stone of Goldwell, was considered a weak candididate nevertheless Vansittart is said to have spent £5,000, about £440,000 today, on securing his re-election.

We can see from his will that when he died in 1787 John Elisha had continued to live in Swallowfield but by then had property in Shinfield, Three Mile Cross and Farley Hill, including owning the Blacksmith’s shop in Shinfield. His estate was divided between his son, John Elisha and his daughter, Elizabeth and her husband William Collins. From his father’s will we know that John Elisha the younger was living in Three Mile Cross at this time. In his own will, made a decade later in 1796, he too describes himself as a bricklayer however, apart from a reference to “stock in trade” which might or might not relate to the building trade, his will is focused almost entirely on farming.

John the younger left everthing to his wife Dorothy for the rest of her life, providing she did not re-marry, with detailed instructions on how the farm was to be managed which give an insight into farming at the end of the eighteenth century. His son Richard, who had been working alongside his father, was to act as baliff and run the farm for his mother, buying and selling “and out of the profitts thereof keep up a sufficient stock of cattle and implements to manure, plough, sow and gather in the corn and grain growing thereon and to inbarn, house, rick, thresh out and carry the same to market and also to act and do everything to the best of his knowledge in [a] reasonable way to preserve and keep the Farm in an husbandlike state and manner”.

From the records of the Land Tax for 1798 we can see that Dorothy owned freehold property and land, including houses in Millworth Lane, Shinfield and Whitley Wood and held even more land as a tenant farmer, possibly including Hartley [Court] Farm. This was a profitable time to be a farmer, with increased yields due to the Agricultural Revolution and high prices as a result of shortages due to the Napoleonic wars. From John Elisha’s will we can see that the Elishas were mixed farmers raising horses and cattle and growing corn and hay. The corn and surplus cattle were sold while the straw from the corn and the hay were used for feed and bedding for the remaining cattle and horses.

When Dorothy died in 1806 it appears that the farm was sold up. Richard and his youngest brother, George appear to have moved to Shoreditch in London where they followed their father and grandfather as bricklayers. Their brother Thomas also became a bricklayer and is recorded in the 1841 census living in Earley with his son George, also a bricklayer. Only their oldest brother, another John Elisha, continued farming in Spencers Wood – more about him in a future blog.